Not having read a film mag in years, I don’t know if they still do this, but… I always despised the dual-mark DVD review section where they give separate marks for films and add-ons, with a similar sort of split shown in the actual reviews in terms of what they talk about. Because if a film is rubbish, who cares if it’s got voiceover commentary by the entire cast’s family? It’s rubbish. You’re reviewing. That’s all that bloody matters.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition has provided me with the latest in a long string of opportunities to be a dirty great hypocrite.

Actually, if I can ask, what’s the party play like? Is there any, or are you all on your lonesome throughout? I like the idea of going into foul dungeons with a band of other heroes, so that may be a deal breaker.

I bought the original one, but it runs like a pig stuck in mud on my machine – this enhanced version doesn’t tweak the graphics at all does it? I really, really would like to give the game a decent shot!

Well I’m now ahhing more than umming. Still annoyed by the whole sex cards thing though, but perhaps I can pretend that the mechanic is intended as a reflection of the gender equality seen in the game world. After all, shouldn’t developers be encouraged to tie game mechanics into story-lines.

Just a thought – do you not think there’s a curious disconnect between UK journos opinions of RPGs from mainland Europe and their acclaim from swathes of the interwub? I’ve noticed that The Witcher, Gothic and Divine Divinity are never short of fans when they’re brought up, but the reviews I remember reading were all a bit negative. Of course, Oblivion seems to work the opposite way…

Also, isn’t the first half-hour of almost every RPG rubbish? (Unless you enjoy rat-bashery). The thought of ever playing the opening of Fallout 2 again makes me want to poke out my eyes with a shrimp fork.

Dan: Yeah, thats’ an interesting one, innit? I’ve thought about it a fair bit. Someone on the PCG forum – I think it was RedAvatar – suggested it’s because games journalists (being writers) are turned off games by bad writing quicker than the general game. Which is certainly an interesting theory.

If the Witcher is going to be remembered for anything, it’s going to be that great ‘innovation’ – storytelling and dialogue that doesn’t suck donkey balls.

From Baldur’s Gate through to Mass Effect, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the sheer obviousness of the choices offered in any situation. Unforeseen consequences are the beating heart of good narrative, and so many cRPG’s have fallen short on this.

The Witcher’s claim to greatness has to be the decision to take the long view on players choices, and not to measure those choices on a linear ‘Good – Evil’ bar.

That was certainly the case for me. I found the shonky writing/dialogue/translation/whatever you want to blame incredibly distracting, and simply couldn’t sink into the game because of it – a problem for a game in which your connection to the character/world is incredibly important. It made it harder to fully appreciate the mechanics of the game, which clearly a lot of people did find hugely exciting.

There I was – credit card at the ready to buy this on Steam but oh deary me, North America only. Never mind, I’ll try Direct2Drive but oh deary me, North America only. Hey, I’ll just get it on Impulse instead but oh deary me, North America only.

In fact you can’t buy this as a download if you are in lil’ ol’ Ireland like me or Western Europe for that matter.

I find it infuruating and it’s obvioulsy not just this game but countless others.

Can the wise yodas of RPS explain to me why I am left disappointed and angry once again?

First demo was good enough already to convince me, definitely picking this up tomorrow.

ninja-edit: oh yeah, Red_Avatar certainly shows some arrogance but it’s not all bollocks either what he says. I really didn’t mind the dialogue mistakes shown in the demo for example, rather badly translated dialogue (which can be fixed) and nice C&C than another Bioware episode of good vs evil (not so easy to fix) with properly written dialogue.

@Schadenfreude: Actually it looks like that might not be true. I’m looking at it now on the Steam version and I can only seen the option to play in various languages. There doesn’t seem to be an option for mixed subtitle/voice files.

Really? The Witcher forums lead me to believe you’d be able to mix and match; maybe it didn’t make the cut. DIYing it is no trickier than renaming a couple of *.tlk files (God bless you Aurora engine), but a menu option would be nice.

I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I really don’t see how anyone can consider last year, a bad year for PC RPGs when it was the first year in ages where there were two(count them, 2) RPGs worth playing. Two isn’t a lot, of course, but it’s still better than about every year since, like, 2000.

Not available in Western Europe because Atari has the rights there, and doesn’t want to distribute via DD, apparently (although you can get in in such places as Romania). Impulse and Steam are probably working on that….

I’ll have to patch my original copy. Performance and load times weren’t a problem for me, but I had some really weird graphical errors, where any kind of glass or water effect placed on a texture made it completely clear.

Having put another hour in: people are right about the “game as foreign-language film” effect that this has. Playing with the polish dialogue and English subtitles makes for a much more convincing experience. The English stuff is just too hammed to take seriously.